Ladies and gentlemen, the students of Haldane have made an impact. On Friday, February 6th, at 1:30 p.m., just one week after everyone else did it, nearly 200 Haldane students took to the streets in protest of ICE. The protest began with a land acknowledgement, led by local student Griffin Lucca, who is allegedly 1/8th Oglala Lakota.
When asked about their participation in the movement, one student stated, “Yeah, so I’ve got a Math Money, and You test this period, and I realllyyyy don’t want to take it. So yeah, get our troops out of Venezuela or whatever.” Another student, proudly displaying a “Veto the Cheeto” sign, stated, “Why am I here? Well, Diem Lee told me he’d pay me 20 bucks if I showed up, so why the hell not!” Event Co-Organizer sophomore Diem Lee has denied all claims of bribery.
Several students saw the protest as a chance to practice their arts and crafts skills. Signs were embossed with a variety of decals, such as “I prefer my ICE crushed” and “ICE in coffee, not in Cold Spring.”
Amidst the chaos and pandemonium of the liberal youth, however, one brave Cold Spring resident dared to take a stand, caring not for their life, they proudly announced how much they liked the taste of ICE Director Todd Lyon’s boots by blasting “Ice Ice Baby” out of a ramshackle speaker system. I, for one, am glad that we are not completely devoid of true American patriotism.
Worry not, as this clear display of anti-administration rhetoric did not go unpunished. Over the course of the following week, protestors were herded into several rooms for lunch detention, where they were instructed on using “I statements.” Principal Sniff en allegedly opened the punishment by stating, “When you skip class, I feel disappointed. Now you try!” After the introduction, the detention immediately devolved into a social hour, with Sniffi n walking out of the room, writing “they don’t pay me enough for this,” in big bold font on the whiteboard.
Notably, famously annoying leftist and Haldane junior Aaden Wik was absent from the protest. When asked about the reason for his abstention, he immediately launched into a tirade, complaining about the fact that “the administration backed the protest,” and it went against “the spirit of political dissent.” He also spent 10 minutes assuring me that he had read his fair share of political theory, and that he was “almost finished reading ‘Capital’ by Marx.”
Despite the large majority of students departing the school to participate, a reported 13 students remained, on account of their lack of support for the cause. A few students used the opportunity to mask their looting across the Cold Spring area. In an official statement, Officer-in-Charge Matthew Jackson declared a 50% increase in microwave robberies, fire hydrant destruction, and general mayhem on the 6th.
The trend of student walkouts has spurred a new wave of student activism across the nation. In response to recent American attacks in Iran, as well as the ongoing Iranian-Israeli conflict, several students already have a new walkout in the works. When asked what the goal of this new protest was, one anonymous student stated, “I’m not really sure what we’re protesting about, but anything the Trump administration does is automatically bad in my book.”
